The Other Woman Who Killed My Marriage

I'll be honest here... I'm a closet Duck Dynasty fan. It's sort of like a guilty pleasure if you will. I couldn't tell you what season the show was on and I probably haven't watched the most recent episodes, but when I see a re-run that's on and it's 10:30am on a Saturday and I don't have plans and no one else is around to see, you better believe i'm tuned in. There's just something about this family that I love watching. They're wholesome, they love each other, they pray before they eat & even though I don't agree with all of them on every issue, I really admire their faith & their ability to overcome adversity.

Well I'm a closet fan no more. At least not when it comes to Missy Robertson, Jace's wife. I recently read one of her blog posts that went pretty viral that you can find right here & it brought tears to my eyes. This post, "I Love You, But Stay Out!" hit me right in the feels from the beginning with a verse that means a lot me:

 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24 (NIV) 

I'll preface this by saying I don't hate my ex-mother-in-law & I don't think she's a bad person at all. She loves her kids & she loves her grandchildren and I will never question whether or not she genuinely cares about each of their wellbeing. But she's a big part of why my marriage ended, whether she realized it at the time or not.

I won't drag out all the details of how and why my husband left our marriage, but the day he pulled out of our driveway, he pulled into hers. She allowed him a place to run away from our marriage & a safe space to ignore all the problems going on in his own home. Without meaning to, she became the other woman. She made dinner for him, she didn't nag him, she gave him money if he needed it & she provided him all the comforts of being back home. Why would anyone want to leave that safety net and go back to the turmoil of a crumbling marriage? 

I clearly remember the day I knew my marriage was truly over. It wasn't when I found out he was in a new relationship or when his fiancee announced her pregnancy or even when the ink dried on our divorce papers. Way before any of those other things ever happened, during one of the toughest days during our fresh separation, my mother-in-law stood in my living room & I begged her to send my husband home. With tears in my eyes & desperation in my heart she looked at me and said, "Why would I send him back here? I love having my son back home." That was the moment I knew my marriage was doomed; I couldn't and wouldn't compete with another woman. 

Now don't get me wrong here, I'm not placing blame on a third party when it comes to the mess we made of our marriage because we did most of the damage on our own. But when it came time to really dig in & work hard to save something as sacred as marriage, another woman gave my husband the opportunity to run from his responsibility as my husband. 

Sometimes I ask myself how things would have turned out if she had simply said, "Ethan, I love you but you can't come back home. You have to go back & be a husband, because now you are a husband first and my son second." Maybe the outcome would have been the same or maybe we'd have almost killed each other before slowly rebuilding our marriage into something beautiful & that's a difficult "what if" to process. 

What I do know for sure is that all of what I went through then has prepared me for where I am right now & I am so grateful for those life lessons. When I have children, I know that one day I will have to look at them and say, "I love you but you can't come back here." I will say it with love and I will say it not just because I know it's the right thing to do, but because i've lived what happens when a parent doesn't make it clear that after marriage, home is where your spouse is, not your parents. 

Lord,

Thank You for sending me my future husband, Scott. I thought I'd never get the chance to be a good
wife who got to work on strengthening her marriage again but You sent me the most amazing man. With him has come an amazing set of parents who share the same values that I do. Lord, You knew that I'd be scared to death but You reassured me and calmed my fears by sending me a Godly soon-to-be mother-in-law that knows why You spoke those words in Genesis. Thank You for giving me this gift so that I can feel confident that I don't have to compete with another woman within my own marriage. Lord, I pray that when those nights come and we both want to just run "home" to the comfort of being a child cradled in the arms of our parents, that You remind us of Genesis 2:24. Lord, I am so grateful for Your forgiveness & I'm humbled that You still love Ethan and I & still bless the both of us even after we failed so miserably at keeping our promises to You. Thank You for giving us both new relationships & for the sweet blessings we have in our lives that are all because of You. Amen.